Such a great and honest piece, George. I have 3 of those "true" friends, dating back to grad school in the 1980s, to my first job as a designer in 1997, and to a women's pick-up basketball league, also in 1997. I live in Virginia. One friend lives in Connecticut with an immuno-compromised spouse (no visits), one lives in DC but is about to move back to Maine, and one lives about 60 miles away but has a cat (I'm allergic), so we have to meet halfway for dinner or she comes to my place occasionally.

I've become good friends with my next door neighbor in my apartment complex, and we get together and share groceries and the like, but she has a husband and a teen, and teaches online. I made that friendship just in the past couple of years.

It is hard to make friends at our age, and with the exception of the Maine friend, I've never been able to maintain a work friendship. Everyone is well-intentioned, but life goes on, and people move.

I take part in some daytime activities (fiber artist group, volunteering) but everyone else is quite settled into their lives with spouses and grandkids, or in the middle of raising a family. There's little commonality and seeing each other for an hour every week isn't conducive to becoming real friends. I guess that saying "it is what it is" applies here.